Guide
Clash of Lords 2 is a very complex strategy game. It doesn't necessarily present itself as such and who knows if it is meant to work this way but playing optimally is not intuitive. Of course it is pay to win, but what game isn't these days, especially mobile games. The good news is the pay to win aspects don't really affect free players too much. This is not a typical guide which explains how to play the game, if you are playing this game you have probably played other strategy games which have the same basic functions and the game has a tutorial. If you were looking for that kind of guide there are plenty of them elsewhere. Here are the things to keep striving for, sorted by my opinion of importance based on rewards for doing so and chances that you already know about it: Spending Jewels, Resource Choice, Spending Resources, Exponential Stats, Gameplay Strategy, and Building Priorities. Spending Jewels Jewels are the pay currency in this game. However unlike most pay to win games it is actually quite easy to obtain a substantial amount of this resource for free and you get very little in return for you cash. The trouble is a very significant portion of these Jewels come from being among the top say 5% of players. It really depends on the server, but you get the idea, free Jewels are "free". Jewels themselves are more than just a resource you trade for stuff. During Spend Events you are rewarded for spending Jewels, more specifically you get 1 point per Jewel you spend and the points can be traded for some incredible rewards. Often these Events overlap two or even three at a time. And recently they have been giving double rewards in some of the Events which sometimes line up with another spend event meaning you basically get the rewards as if 3 Events were running concurrently. Most importantly there is one Event which breaks this wide open. Limited Time Trading is a common Event whereby you trade large quantities of Jewels for a variety of different things. There are many different trades and they are mostly crap, but there is one trade that you always want to do. That is trading Jewels for Jewels. The quantities vary and have been increasing with time. Lately it is most common to see trades of either 16k or 17k Jewels for 20k Jewel. That is 4k or 3k free jewels, but that is not the most important point, these Jewels are counted as spent, giving you 16k or 17k points in whatever Spend Events are running concurrently. So save up, and never drop below 17k Jewels if you want to ride this gravy train. Now onto what you should be spending your Jewels on. Here is my opinion on how to prioritize spending (emphasis on opinion, everyone's situation varies): *10x Hero Hire when you don't have a full team of good Epics *The Cat's Meow *Unlocking 3 Talent slots on all of your fielded Heroes. *30 Jewel Energy buy during double El Dorado Rewards Event *Mega Lucky Spin *10x Hero Hire *Refreshing and Lighting Up Hero Talents Varying/Dependent priorities: *Donating to Guild Bot/Guild Chariot and Guild Clash *Buying 'Super Special Packs' from 'Sign-In Rewards' *Buying Game Mode Chances *Adding Builder Shacks *Unlocking Hero Slots in Vault *Buying Decorations Resource Choice There are many occasions in this game where you are given a choice on a variety of different rewards. These rewards are by no means balanced, consistent, or holistic. Events are largely this way whereby you acquire points to spend among a wide selection of different rewards. Event rewards frequently change in terms of price, quantity, and availability. Other important resource sources include: Guild Quests, A Guild United tier rewards, Battle Square 'Battle Mall', The Cat's Meow, and Lucky Spin. A deep analysis of all of the math which goes into determining all of these different value propositions is available on the perspective resource and Game Mode pages. What follows is a simplified methodology for comparing these options on the fly. The easiest baseline to use for comparison is Rings. They are almost always available and generally have much more stable pricing than other resources. They are also a highly prized resource which many players would prefer to trade for anyway. Below is my personal break even point, in other words where things even out. My Break Even Point for each resource is: *1 Ring per 100 Souls *2 Rings per 1 Mutagen *2 Rings per 1 Jewel *10 Rings per Equipment Shard *100 Rings per Coral Exp Egg, or 7500 EXP *4 Rings per Hero Shard for the newest best Heroes 1 *3 Rings per Hero Shard for your best Heroes *2 Rings per Hero Shard for good Heroes and Ancient Spirit Shards #Valuing shards is complicated by the fact that many Hero shards are very easy to get in large quantities from Coliseum and Battle Square 'Battle Mall'. Also a very large quantity of shards are needed for Enlightenment and most players choose to focus on a select group of Heroes to power-level. Thus you should probably value shards from those Heroes who are not commonly available in large quantities whom you are working on very highly. Also be careful not to get caught sleeping, the shards offered in these Game Modes frequently change and most are usually most heavily comprised of the the newest Heroes and those recently Enlightened. Spending Resources Other resources don't have the same added benefits of timing their spending, however it is still important to spend them wisely. Of note, there are many trials that run during A Guild United which challenge your guild to spend these resources, so you may wish to save up a bit around each new update as aGU starts a week or two after every new update. Rings Generally it is best to spend Rings leveling your Heroes Active Skills. Prioritize leveling your most important skills until they are at their lowest rage cost, and then work on doing so for all used skills, and then work on the best Hero Aid Skills. Buying Heroes with Rings is generally not worth it and unneeded unless you get really unlucky in 10x Hero Hire. Rings are also spent in Evolution and Enlightenment however it is best to use Evolution Essence whenever possible and focus on those Heroes who can use Essences, because eventually they all will. *Best Heroes skills to lowest rage cost (lv 14-18) *All used Heroes to lowest rage cost *Best Hero Aides (lv 13-16) *Everything based on Cost vs Benefit Souls The most important thing to do with Souls is to make sure all of your buildings have armor. Only one level is needed, as this will absorb a single hit no matter how powerful and provide very good protection against base wipe strategies. Not all buildings are able to be armored, and buildings have different levels which they need to reach before you can start giving them armor. Also wait until there is a Power Value Power-Ups Events and you will save 30% off the price. Otherwise, it is best to spend Souls leveling the Mercenaries on all of your fielded characters to 30, unlocking all Merc Talents when they become available, and choose to either focus on building a Sharpshooter or Wizard lineup. Wizards have slightly more potential, however their usefulness is completely dependent on Skull Mage who is currently unable to be Enlightened, meaning he is very expensive to Evolve. Also he is not generally the most useful Hero in Game Modes other than Battle Royale. That is not to say he is bad, but the new Heroes are simply insane. Conversely Chiron is the key to the Sharpshooter strat. And he is incredibly good in every Game Mode throughout all but the highest levels. It is important that you decide on one of these strats early and start working on building your team. Start by working each up to level 35, and then go from 35 to 45, and finally from 45 to 50. The reason for the 10 levels in the middle is that it is prohibitively expensive to go from 35 to 40. Gold If you have the time to do Resources Raids then it is very much possible to spend Gold on whatever you want, however here is my list of Gold spending prioritization: *Building Upgrades *Creating Spells *Materials Store *Contributing at least 3 times to the Guild Bot and Guild Chariot per day *Mystic Shop Other It is generally best to spend Mugs in The Cat's Meow for Rings. The other place to spend Mugs is Dancing Dragons for Souls and the amount you get in comparison to Rings is fair, however Rings are generally a much more useful resource for most players. It might be tempting to spend Hero Shards fusing Heroes, however take note that it costs a total of 15,600 Shards to get fully Enlighten each Hero so you best start saving. Mutagen can be a tricky resource because of Evolution Essence, however at high levels the prices get quite steep as it costs 32,000 Mutagen to fully Enlighten a Hero and leveling maxing out each Heroes Insight Skill costs tens of thousands more. And Basition upgrades and Glyphs are two more deep Mutagen sinks. Exponential Stats There are a number of different stats in this game which become far more powerful once they begin approaching 100%. These stats include Damage Reduction/Increase Damage Taken, Dodge/Hit Rate, and Attack Rate. Damage Reduction and Dodge It isn't easy to explain why it works like this but it can basically be explained like so. If you have 50% Damage Reduction/Dodge it will take twice as many hits to kill your hero, if you have 90% DMG Red/Dodge it will take 10 times the number of hits to kill your hero, with 95% DMG Red/Dodge it will take 20 times the number of hits to kill your hero. The counter to damage reduction is Increased Damage Taken. The Berserker's active skill can increase it by up to 100%. Bullhead's aid skill can increase all damage taken by up to 85%. The counter to dodge is +hit. Hit negates dodge 1 for 1 and any amount of hit greater than your opponent is wasted. Attack Rate The speed at which your Heroes attack is determined by two things. The Heroes attack animation and their attack cooldown. Attack rate reduces the attack cooldown by its stated percentage. There are three different tiers of Heroes regarding these stats. Most ranged heroes and some of the newer melee and flying heroes attack the fastest at a base rate of around 1.1 attacks per second. The old flyers plus Savage Chief and Glory Priestess attack slightly slower at around 1 atk/s. And most melee heroes have a base attack rate which is much slower at .7 atk/s. At 100% ATK Rate Tier 1 Heroes pump out around 5.5 atk/s, Tier 2 deal 5 atk/s, and Tier 3 lag way behind at 3.3 atk/s. In depth detail about the math that goes into these numbers and specifically which tier each specific Hero falls into check out the Attack Rate page. Below is a graph showing the parabolic nature of the attack rate curves. Gameplay Strategy There are many different Game Modes which require very different strategies and benefit from utilizing a variety of different Heroes. You can find a through discussion of strategy on the page of each game mode, here I will list the most important points only. Base Raids Lords League, Resources Raid, and Guild Clash are variations of the same basic idea whereby players attack other players bases. Attacking and defending is essentially the same in each of these game modes with the trend being that it is generally hardest being the attacker in Guild Clash, and slightly harder being the attacker in Lords League than Resources Raid. There is no way to say which one is definitely the hardest, because there are a ton of variables, but basically the majority of bases the game offers you to attack are usually very easy or impossible for you to defeat. This strategy focuses on even matchups. *Only use melee Heroes who have significant staying power. Many melee heroes can become powerful enough, however before they reach that point they are simply fodder. Healing is very important. There are only a few Heroes who can step up to this role. *Abyss Demon is amazing because he plays the role of both tank and healer, however he can be very derpy in these game modes. Basically he needs to hit things in order to heal, but the AI is very bad and sends him walking the long way around or walking back and forth very often. Thus he is better in Guild Clash whereby the buildings can have much higher HP. *Toxic Shaman is insanely good, however his skill is a moderate sized aoe which lands on the target he is attacking meaning it won't always land near the rest of your party. He has 50% more range than other ranged heroes so it is somewhat common for him to pick different targets and he out ranges his heal. *Ambrosia is a perfect emergency healer, however she doesn't have anywhere near the sustain of the other two. *The Berserker aides can reduce the amount of damage your heroes take by a monumental amount. This greatly decreases the need for healing. Be mindful where and how you drop your Heroes. *It is very common to see Chiron on defense. His Fortitude Skill summons a powerful clone each time you drop a Hero. If you drop all your Heroes at once his clones may overwhelm you. *Landslide charges onto the closest Hero to him once you drop your 3rd Hero. If you can kill him before you drop your 3rd Hero he will never move or do anything. Otherwise the best course of action is to have him charge a flying Hero or tank a few tiles away from the rest of the team so his charge doesn't hit them inflicting stun and wiping out your Mercenaries. *Ambrosia can be insanely powerful defensively because her extreme range can keep her from aggroing your Heroes. It should be your main focus to figure out how to either kill/lock her down fast, or deal with everything else while still being able to get to her quickly afterwards. Won Ton and Great Sage are great options for locking her down. Ravenger and Demon Slayer are great options for pulling her to you. *Mercenaries are summoned behind and to the sides of your Heroes unless you drop them in the corners of the map. In this case they all summon on a specific side trailing out depending on the corner. On the Top and Left they are summoned counter clockwise to the corner, and on the other two corners they are summoned clockwise. They form a fairly large line which can be problematic in terms of drawing aggro, however this can also be to your advantage as much of the time some or all of the Heroes will go back to their spot when the Mercs die or walk out of range. Also the Mercs provide for great fodder while you are setting up your attack and building rage. Be mindful of your entire footprint when dropping Heroes. *You don't have to drop every Hero in the same area. It may be much quicker, or even safer to drop your tank in a spot to grab all the aggro and then drop everyone else all around the map to burst down the buildings. Your opponents level can give you a quick idea of the level of their buildings, but the only buildings that really matter are the Victory Statues *Familiarize yourself with the appearance of all the levels of this building so you can quickly recognize what you are facing up against. *Victory Statues are not particularly tanky, so they require other buildings to buffer for them. The Town Hall, Sanctum, and Bastion are the best buildings by far for this role, and other buildings include Heroes Hall and Gold Vault. This is not because those 2 buildings are extra tanky, but they are pretty much always rushed by players making them among the highest level buildings you will face at mid-level play. Other defenders who can be very strong include: *Pan Goli - It is less common to see these days but a Pan Goli with a very high level skill can one shot low HP heroes. *Great Sage - His fortitude skill can bring him back to life a countless number of times almost guaranteeing multiple stuns/silences against the attacking team. *Won Ton - His skills are among the hardest hitting in the game right now. *Wolvenfiend - His skill gives him a stupid amount of damage reduction. If you don't have anything to increase damage against him it may not even be possible to kill him. The Berserker fills this role nicely, and you should always have a Bullhead aid set. *Whomever their tank is, if they have much higher level weapons than you and they stack Dodge it may be nearly impossible for your team to hit them if you don't stack +hit to counter. Dodge stacking is most common to see on Landslide with a Dragon Heart equipped. The same goes for Damage Reduction, however it is much easier to counter because of the power of The Berserker's Active Skill and Bullhead's Aid Skill. *Defensive Hero spacing is incredibly important. You want your Heroes to aggro together and cover a large area. If they are too closely packed there will be areas exposed where the attacking team can get set up and dig in before any of your Heroes retaliate. If they are too widely spread it may be possible to pick them off one by one. The way aggro works on defense is strange. Pay close attention to find any weak spots in your setup. *As discussed certain heroes such as Ambrosia are defensive monsters, your base should be setup to best protect and utilize her greatness. *Walls can be easily cleaved apart in large sections by a great number of Heroes skill's. Instead of using them as long barriers it is better to create compartments. Battle Royale Battle Royale is a very specialized game mode whereby the most important units you command are actually your Mercenaries and not your Heroes. It might be surprising to learn but Sharpshooters are the strongest along with Wizards. *This is because Sharpshooters have the fastest Attack Rate of any mercenaries and you get 25 of them, whereby some mercenaries max out at 15. Also there are multiple powerful Active Skills which significantly buff Sharpshooters, including that of Chiron and Pyro Pete. And finally there are multiple very powerful aides for sharpshooters including Renee Ven and Pyro Pete. *Wizards derive their power from their natively high stats and both the Active and Divine Skills of Skull Mage. His skills are so powerful infact that he makes Wizards strats just as powerful as Sharpshooter. The most powerful aid choice is Demon Slayer who greatly increases the number or mercs and provides them with significant damage reduction and speed at the start of battle. Shining Wizard adds five wizards to your Hero for the measly skill requirement of lv 12. Carol d'Belle provides a small amount of HP and ATK to your mercs but also provides a significant amount of damage reduction which can be very helpful against certain Heroes. Depending on the situation there are many support heroes which can greatly aid your lineup. *Unarguably the most powerful of which is The Berserker whose skill can increase the damage your target takes by 100%. The trick with him is that he will charge whichever Hero has the highest HP, so you either have to keep the other Heroes out of his range or focus your team on the highest hp Hero. It is also useful the The Berserker is an amazing tank. *Great Sage can be crucial against certain Heroes whose Active Skills can greatly diminish your damage. This includes Chiron whose clones will absorb a ton of damage and possibly kill your ranged heroes, Sapphirix whose skill can wipe your mercenaries out in one hit, Great Sage whose skill stuns/silences your team and wipes out your mercenaries. *Ambrosia's divine skill can be used to pull everything on the map and clear out most of the buildings. The Heroes are only pulled if her divine hits hard enough to kill their Heroes Halls. Pulling everything can be useful or to your detriment so beware. *Toxic Shaman's Divine Skill can be used to greatly increase the number of units fighting on your side and his Active Skill provides a powerful heal and a bit of Crit Rate to your team. His skills are also a very useful mechanic for drawing aggro. *Ravenger and Demon Slayer have the ability to pull bosses to your feat. *Abyss Demon is a great healer who can dish out loads of dps. *When Renee Ven's Divine hits Pisces it gains an additional effect to refresh the most recently used Divine for your other Heroes. This can be used to great effect. Powerful aides for BR include: *Bullhead can increase all damage taken by your target by up to 75%! *Sapphirix who can increase your Heroes HP and DMG by up to 50%. *Blockhead can increase your Heroes Attack Rate by up to 50%. Category:Browse